ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

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than no settlement at all because it would have been a permanent, institutionalized Russian presence within Moldova and a permanent economic drain on the country. Q: Was there a real chance of this happening? PERINA: Absolutely. We in fact came very close to it in December 2003 with the socalled Kozak Memorandum. Dmitriy Kozak, a close confidante of Putin’s and his deputy chief of staff, suddenly showed up in Moldova in the fall of 2003 with a mandate to resolve the Transnistria conflict. He did all of the negotiation in shuttle diplomacy between Voronin and Smirnov, and it was a unilateral Russian effort. None of the other mediators were involved. I visited Moldova in late September when he happened to be in town and asked to meet with him. We met for drinks in the lobby of the Jolly Alon Hotel. Kozak was pleasant enough but gave very little information on the substance of the negotiations. He described it as a type of memorandum dealing with the principles of a settlement but not containing many details on implementation. I specifically asked him if there was a military component, such as the question of a peacekeeping force, and he said there was not. A few months later, in mid-November, we were in Moscow with EUR Assistant Secretary Beth Jones to conduct consultations in preparation for the Maastricht OSCE Ministerial meeting, scheduled to be held in early December. It was then that the Russians first showed us a draft of the document being negotiated. They also told us that Voronin had agreed to sign it. Everyone was in total shock. The document was terribly slanted in favor of Transnistria. It outlined a federal structure which retained almost all of Transnistria’s independence but also enhanced its influence within Moldova through the legislative structure. The Transnistrians acquired de facto veto power over major Moldovan policy decisions, including on matters of foreign policy. There was also an annex allowing Russian troops to remain in Moldova for twenty years, and perhaps longer. It would have made Moldova a permanent hostage of the Transnistrians. The Russians wanted the document signed by Voronin and Smirnov prior to the Maastricht Ministerial meeting, and they thus knew they had to make it public. They put it on an internet website, where it began circulating. The reaction was outrage, not just among Western governments but also among Moldovans. By late November, there were demonstrations in Chisinau of up to 50,000 people by some estimates protesting the memorandum. It seemed neither Voronin nor Kozak had anticipated such a reaction, but Putin was going forward with plans to fly to Chisinau for the signing ceremony early in the week of November 23. I was in Vienna at this time involved in the final OSCE preparations for Maastricht. I remember walking along the street in the early afternoon of November 21 and getting a call on my cell phone. It was Voronin’s office saying that he wanted to speak with me. He got on the line and asked me what I thought the U.S. reaction would be if he signed the memorandum. I told him that it would be very negative, and that he would lose the support of the United States and most other Western countries as well. He told me he was reconsidering the entire memorandum and would make a decision that weekend. Well, as we later found out, on the eve of Putin’s departure for Chisinau, Voronin told the Russians he would not sign and cancelled the signing ceremony. We heard from many sources after that that Putin was just furious at Voronin. What Putin hoped would be a triumph of Russian peacemaking turned out to be 118
a huge personal embarrassment. It led to a major deterioration in Russian-Moldovan relations. Still, the Russians have never given up on the Kozak approach to resolving this conflict, and they continue to put pressure on Voronin to accept such an approach. He has so far resisted, to his credit, but he is unpredictable in these things and could still change his mind. I like to think that I played a role in preventing him for signing the 2003 document, though the situation was such that there were other Western governments démarching him at the time, and our bilateral Ambassador Heather Hodges also delivered a formal demarche from Washington against signing the memorandum. In retrospect, however, I think the factor that influenced Voronin most were the domestic demonstrations. By coincidence this also happened to be the weekend that Shevardnadze was toppled from power in Georgia by demonstrations—the weekend of the Rose Revolution. I think this is what scared Voronin most. He saw what happened to Shevardnadze. While Moldova’s demonstrations were still manageable, Voronin did not want to take the chance of the same thing happening to him and that is why he decided not to sign. Q: Given all this, what was your assessment of the U.S. role in all of these frozen conflicts? Was there really a role for the U.S.? PERINA: I think there was a role in two respects. First, as I mentioned, it is important to keep a negotiating process, a diplomatic track, going in all of these conflicts. If there is no diplomatic activity, the only alternative for those wishing to change things is war. The participation of the U.S. is important to giving most of these negotiations credibility and support. Secondly, the U.S. role is also important as a counter-weight to the Russians. The Moldovans and others understood this, and that is why they always wanted the U.S. engaged in the negotiations. The European Union, for all its good efforts, is still not cohesive or organized or fast enough to be able to stand up to the Russians when it becomes necessary. At the same time, I think it is true that none of these conflicts can be resolved without Russian cooperation. Russia’s influence in this part of the world is just too great and likely to remain so. In the case of Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia is in fact the key factor that perpetuates the conflicts. In the case of Karabakh, the Russians cannot force a settlement but they can be spoilers and prevent one if they choose to do so. Q: Did you sense that Russia was becoming more adversarial and hardline in its policies? Were people starting to become more worried about Russian policies? PERINA: We spent a huge amount of time trying to figure out Russian policy and what they were really up to. It was very difficult because the policies were so often seemingly inconsistent and contradictory. The Russians would say one thing and act completely differently. Part of this, of course, might be attributed to basic duplicity, and I am sure it was, but it was also more complicated. The Presidents in the region such as Voronin and Shevardnadze all complained to me about their frustrations with the Russians. Voronin in particular would tell me how Putin promised him something but then it never happened. I once asked Trubnikov, the Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister whom I got to know 119
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The Association for Diplomatic Stud
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Holbrooke visits Albanians Dayton M
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throughout the country were execute
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capitalists and so on. At that time
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taken to an apartment which initial
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Q: You said that after Cleveland yo
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they agreed to send me there. Marxi
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most comprehensive collection of in
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Q: What was the background of your
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is there from that trial?” I thou
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word that he was going to come to a
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Q: During the Vietnam War, there wa
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very different interpretations. The
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Q: So you were there from 1979? PER
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I will always remember that staff m
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was very tough. We did suspend the
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line was that a person was made to
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there. The Polish economy was nose-
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Q: What sorts of issues did you tal
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war. But I can tell you that the So
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museums. Even in the private sector
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to the Soviet Union. Everything tha
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phrases “Open this gate, tear dow
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PERINA: Yes, they did. Jumping ahea
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Those plenary sessions I actually w
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PERINA: That is exactly right. The
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Q: OK, in 1989 you’re going to th
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PERINA: This was an issue because o
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position in Europe, and really the
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Soviet domination. They had histori
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Q: That was my impression as well w
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welcoming dinner in a restaurant an
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Q: How were you received by the Ser
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Page 73 and 74: Q: So what was happening with Kosov
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Page 81 and 82: Q: And this was not an idle comment
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Page 85 and 86: PERINA: Certainly during the period
Page 87 and 88: Q: So you took over the Holbrooke r
Page 89 and 90: PERINA: Not really. We coordinated
Page 91 and 92: why I believed that it was not wort
Page 93 and 94: Q: Can you give a brief summary of
Page 95 and 96: PERINA: Well the American interests
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Page 99 and 100: Q: How so? PERINA: Well, he felt un
Page 101 and 102: Q: Still, it strikes me that all of
Page 103 and 104: As for the European Union, most Mol
Page 105 and 106: PERINA: Nagorno-Karabakh is the mos
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Page 115 and 116: PERINA: It is difficult to say. He
Page 117: political interests to keep it goin
Page 121 and 122: clearly followed the advice because
Page 123 and 124: good governance and so on. In its b
Page 125 and 126: Deputy Secretary, Richard Armitage,
Page 127 and 128: PERINA: Relations with Europe were
Page 129: End of interview 129
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